Norse Mythology: Human Sacrifice in Ancient Scandinavia

In the narrowest sense, ‘Scandinavia’ is Sweden and Norway. In a broader sense, the word also refers to Denmark and Iceland. Its widest usage includes parts of Finland, Germany, and Poland, as well as the Faroe Islands.

There is a difference between the geographical and the cultural use of the word.

As historian Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson notes, paganism survived late in Scandinavia. After nearly all of Europe had given up the practices of human sacrifice, cannibalism, and the sale of women as property, the Norse were still engaging in such activities. Paganism was still widespread until the twelfth century.

Perhaps because heathen practices continued later in this region, they are more documented than in other areas. Saxony, e.g., discontinued pagan practices several centuries earlier, and few written records remain about their human sacrifices. Ellis Davidson writes:

In south Sweden can be seen hundreds of rock carvings from a still earlier time, recording rites and symbols; while at holy places like Thorsbjerg in north Germany or Skedemose on the island of Oland in the Baltic, offerings of men and animals, weapons, ornaments, ploughs and food were made over a period of centuries in the lakes and marshes, as careful excavation has now revealed.

Among the pantheon of Norse mythology, Odin was a chief or king among the deities, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the Norse idols. Germanic royalty sometimes claimed descent from him, and he appears in some of their genealogies.

Odin was therefore especially worshipped by aristocrats and military men. In the case of Odin, human sacrifice took the particular form of prisoners of war, as Ellis Davidson reports:

Odin was the ancestor of Scandinavian kings, and was worshipped by those who lived by their weapons and went out to plunder and conquer in many lands in the Viking Age; war captives and animals might be sacrificed to him and their bodies hung from trees.

Human sacrifice was a standard and essential feature of Nordic spirituality. As a general feature of pre-religious culture, mythology, including Norse mythology, included magic.

Magic is the attempt to manipulate natural events or human events. Sacrifice, of animals or humans, is done in an attempt to persuade some supernatural being to intervene on one’s behalf.

Moving from pre-religious societies to religious societies, attempts at magic recede, and there is more of an emphasis on forming a relationship with the deity rather than merely attempting to cajole the deity to act in one’s favor. By the 1200s, both human and animal sacrifice had become quite rare in Scandinavia.

From Dunkirk to North Africa: Britain Revitalizes the War Effort

In early 1940, the British military forces, which had come to western Europe in an effort to slow or stop the advance of the German army, were steadily retreating. Soon they were pinned down around Dunkirk, a town on France’s northern coast.

Inside the British government, some leaders wanted to meet the Nazis at a conference and negotiate a peace treaty. They would have let Hitler continue to control the German army and most of Europe.

Those who favored the idea of a peace conference feared that they’d lose a fight against Hitler. This fear was reasonable in light of the fact that the British military needed to be evacuated from Dunkirk to avoid be captured in its entirety.

But peace negotiations would imply and require at least a modicum of trust. Those opposed to a peace conference pointed out that Hitler was not to be trusted.

Inside the British government, there was a tension between those who wanted a peace conference and those who opposed the idea. Prime Minister Winston Churchill would break that tension, as historian Larry Arnn writes:

The day on which Churchill put an end to the idea of a peace conference was May 28, 1940. He walked into the cabinet room and made a stirring speech, which in the diary of Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton ended with these words: “If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.” This speech, which provoked a demonstration of enthusiasm that swept throughout the government, was not a product of any trend or great evolution of history. It spoke in defiance of those forces.

A bit more than a year later, in late 1941 and early 1942, Churchill was developing his strategy for the war. The air war raged over England, but the Germans had not invaded Britain, and the British military was rebounding from the debacle at Dunkirk.

The British were not yet ready for a direct confrontation in Europe with the German military. As historians Peter Maslowski and Allan Millett write,

Reverting to their traditional approach of defeating continental enemies, the British wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with a full-strength Wehrmacht in northern Europe until this confrontation carried no risk of a 1914-1918 stalemate. Instead they urged operations in the Mediterranean theater, where they were already engaged and where their scarce naval, air, and ground forces had some some ability to check the Germans and Italians. Churchill stressed that the Mediterranean theater offered many strategic opportunities, since the African littoral could be wrested from the Vichy French forces in Morocco and Algeria and the German-Italian army campaigning in the Libyan-Egyptian area against the British 8th Army. Churchill argued that a 1942 campaign in this area would divert German troops from Russia and strengthen the British war effort. What he did not say was that this campaign would be British-commanded (thus presumably using the greatest Allied expertise in generalship) and help restore the integrity of the British Empire, which Churchill desperately wanted to preserve.

Especially in the areas of North Africa, including Egypt, and the Near East, maintaining some sense of the British Empire was crucial to keeping the peace. This would become painfully clear after the war.

The French and British presence in the Near East had already become less decisive in the wake of WW1. The Europeans had paid too high a price, both in terms of lives and in terms of money, to continue to devote a high level of resources to keeping the region policed.

Although the Near East had been civilized millennia before Europe, the region’s civilizations had become notably less humane and less peaceful in recent centuries. The French and British presence in broad swaths of the area - much of which had formerly been Ottoman possessions - kept a lid on the periodic feuds and bloodbaths which erupted on a regular basis.

Churchill was, even in the grim days of early 1942, thinking ahead to a postwar era, and thinking of ways to maintain peace in that era. Sadly, the British Empire would continue fading, and more than half a century of violence in Near East, during the postwar decades, has shown that the absence of French and British occupational troops led to increased violence.

Human civilization paid a high price in order to defeat Hitler. While millions of Germans were freed from his cruel Nazi dictatorship, millions of people in the Near East were left exposed as major European powers could no longer afford to keep the peace there.

Global Climatic Instability: A Continuation of Ancient Trends

Variations in the Earth’s climate have caused researchers to look for the causes of such changes. Specifically, certain political groups have asserted that warming and cooling trends could be anthropogenic, and have sought evidence to support this view.

The notion propagated over social media is roughly this, that since the increased use of ‘fossil fuels’ (coal, oil, and natural gas) started in the late 1700s, emissions, specifically carbon dioxide have accumulated in the earth’s atmosphere and thereby initiated changes in the climate.

Long-term trends in the planet’s climate, however, predate large-scale industrialization.

A wide variety of techniques allow researchers to measure conditions prior to the advent of recorded readings from thermometers: core samples from ice or soil; tree-ring evaluation; written records quantifying the expansion and contraction of glaciers, and gauging snowfall and rainfall; and general agricultural and naturalistic records documenting which types of plant thrived in various locations.

From such measurements, it is possible to accurately reconstruct a climatic history of the Earth. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sets forth a history which includes a Roman Warm Period (ending around 400 A.D.), a Dark Ages Cold Period (ending around 950 A.D.), a Medieval Warm Period (ending around 1250 A.D.), and a Little Ice Age (ending around 1870 A.D.).

Naturally, these dates are not precise, but rather indicate a general and gradual change in a trend. Terminology varies somewhat, as the Medieval Warm Period is, e.g., also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA). The IPCC notes that

New warm-season temperature reconstructions covering the past 2 millennia show that warm European summer conditions were prevalent during 1st century, followed by cooler conditions from the 4th to the 7th century.

What seems, in the short-term context of a century or two, to be a warming trend, is in the larger context of several millennia merely the global climate emerging from end of the Little Ice Age.

A visual graph on a Cartesian plane of the Earth’s climatic temperature over time would look something like a sine wave, warming and cooling patterns following each other over the centuries. The IPCC writes that

Persistent warm conditions also occurred during the 8th–11th centuries, peaking throughout Europe during the 10th century. Prominent periods with cold summers occurred in the mid-15th and early 19th centuries.

This pattern extends backward in time long before the commencement of the large-scale use of fossil fuel. The planet has experienced centuries in which northern Europe and North America had temperatures warm enough to support subtropical plant life.

Conversely, there were centuries in which, e.g., large parts of northern and central Africa experience temperatures consistent with temperate zones. These extremes occurred at a time when the use of coal, oil, and gas was nearly unknown. The IPCC reports that

There is high confidence that northern Fennoscandia from 900 to 1100 was as warm as the mid-to-late 20th century.

The pattern which emerges, then, is a steady sinusoid pattern, with the planet’s climate alternating between warm periods and cool periods every few centuries. This general pattern seems to continue unaffected by any anthropogenic variables.

If the use of fossil fuels were capable of altering the earth’s climate, then other human activities of comparable size and scope should be also capable of producing changes in climate.

But other human actions, like the shockingly large number of atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs detonated during the era of frequent bomb tests, have had no long-term measurable effect on the climate. The explosion of over 2,000 nuclear weapons over a few years was not capable of altering the climate.

If the weapons-testing programs were not capable of producing long-term warming or cooling trends (they might have had temporary localized effects), then it’s much less likely that the comparatively smaller use of fossil fuel would generate any change in climate trends.

The reliability of the sinusoid as a best-fit pattern for global climate stands, even though individual data points are sometimes outliers which depart from the best-fit line, as the IPCC indicates:

The evidence also suggests warm conditions during the 1st century, but comparison with recent temperatures is restricted because long-term temperature trends from tree-ring data are uncertain.

It would be noteworthy, even surprising, if the planet weren’t in the midst of a warming or cooling trend. The ‘normal’ condition of the Earth’s climate is to be in constant change.

Going back several thousand years, the Earth’s climate has demonstrated a semi-regular pattern of alternating between several warm centuries and several cool centuries. In light of this historical record, the climate’s current behavior is within ranges established by this pattern.

Because temperature trends in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are consistent with the tendencies observed in previous millennia, there might be no need to search for extraordinary or anthropogenic causes. The IPCC notes that the MCA, a millennium ago, was likely even warmer than the current twenty-first century climate:

In the European Alps region, tree-ring based summer temperature reconstructions show higher temperatures in the last decades than during any time in the MCA, while reconstructions based on lake sediments show as high, or slightly higher temperatures during parts of the MCA compared to most recent decades.

Likewise, the Roman Warm Period, beginning around 250 B.C., was perhaps warmer than the current climate:

The longest summer temperature reconstructions from parts of the Alps show several intervals during Roman and earlier times as warm (or warmer) than most of the 20th century.

In sum, the climate is ‘changing’ only in the sense that it has been continuously and predictably changing for at least the last two millennia. The climate is doing nothing extraordinary.

Observed and measured temperatures, and warming and cooling trends, do not correlate with the onset of industrialization and the widespread use of fossil fuels. The data do not suggest that any generalizations gathered from climatic observation are anthropogenic.

Chiang in Context: China in the Mid 1930s

As the leader of mainland China from 1928 to 1949, and the leader of Taiwan China from 1949 to 1975, Chiang Kai-shek experienced many ups and downs. Throughout his time in mainland China, he wrestled continuously against the communists, either in a state of outright war, or in an uneasy truce.

Mao, the leader of the communists, at times found it expedient to lavishly if insincerely praise Chiang. The communists would exploit times of ceasefire during the ongoing Chinese civil war to regroup and rebuild their strength, and then resume their attack.

The war inside mainland China lasted from 1927 to 1949, and so was largely coextensive with Chiang’s tenure as leader there.

Although the struggle was long, there were times at which things went well for the ‘Nationalists,’ as those who defended the Chinese against communism were called. Historian Jay Taylor writes about the year 1936:

Despite continuing civil wars, the depression, depredations by Japan, and preparation for a general war, the power and authority of the Chinese central government was greater than at any time since the Taiping Uprising. In the spring, displaying military, political, and covert action skills, Chiang had quickly put down another rebellion by the Guangxi Clique and the usual dissidents in Guangdong. The rebels had again charged Chiang with appeasement and dictatorship but essentially the rebellion reflected the ongoing power struggle between the warlords and the central government. In their own provinces, the warlords were more like dictators than Chiang Kai-shek was, and within two years their preferred national leader, Wang Jingwei — at the moment still in Europe — would defect to Japan. Chiang's generous treatment of the incorrigible southerners, even sending them three million central government yuan or fabi in emergency aid, was an act of enlightened self-interest, which is perhaps all one can expect of a national leader.

The Guangxi region has a long cultural history - predating and outlasting Chiang - of being fiercely independent, and not identifying with the rest of mainland China. Mao, then, was not the only headache which Chiang faced.

In the southernmost part of China, and bordering on Guangxi, was the Guangdong region, which likewise had a traditionally independent attitude. Therefore many of Chiang’s troubles came from the south.

Wang Jingwei was a competitor who wanted Chiang’s power, but Wang Jingwei would obtain significance only to the extent that he attached himself either to the communists or the Japanese. In 1932, Chiang and Wang Jingwei had reached a compromise in which Wang Jingwei assumed political leadership of the Nationalist party, while Chiang led the military and much of the government.

Although the communists would ultimately succeed in subjugating mainland China and ousting Chiang, his two decades of leadership were not an unmitigated tragedy. At many points, things seemed to be going well.

The Island Mentality

Geography influences culture. Societies on islands are profoundly affected by their boundaries: England, Sri Lanka, Hawaii, and Cuba. Four quite different places, yet all share this factor.

Residents of an island nation find that coming and going are clearly defined events. Leaving or returning to an island requires more planning, and is a more clearly defined event than leaving or returning to a continental nation.

Because such coming and going both represent the transversal of a significant geographical feature, and require more time, effort, and money, island nations develop a distinct self-concept of being set apart.

Going from one continental nation to another can be done with such great ease that people are sometimes not even aware that they’ve done it.

Island nations, then, whether they are sovereign states or parts of other political entities, develop according to certain patterns produced by their geography.

The Carrying Capacity of Planet Earth: Human Population

The term ‘carrying capacity’ is used to designate the maximum population that a certain habitat can support.

A square mile deciduous forest might maximally support a certain number of squirrels. An inland lake of a certain number of gallons might maximally maintain a certain number of carp. Those are examples of ‘carrying capacity,’ - the largest number of inhabitants which can be maintained without environmental degradation.

At one time, in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the popular press and news media carried stories of the Earth nearing its total carrying capacity in terms of human beings. These reports had a certain “scare effect,” and there was talk of striving for “zero population growth.”

Although they were mere sensationalism, these media events do raise a legitimate question: is there an upper limit to the number of human beings which the planet can support?

Any number put forward as an answer to this question will necessarily be an estimate, and a rough one at that. The staggering number of variables in play, and their highly complex relationships to each other, are compounded by the constantly changing technology which allows for increasing food production.

In a sustainable and renewable way, without environmental degradation, how much food, clean water, and clean air can be available? How many people can inhabit planet Earth?

Reasoned estimates point to some number greater than 100 billion. But how much greater, nobody’s really willing to guess.

These estimates factor in a “first world” standard of living for the population: telephone, television, running water and other indoor plumbing, HVAC, electricity, etc., and around 200 square feet of indoor living space per person.

This is quite a rosy scenario, and much brighter than the doom and gloom presented by those who thought that a “population bomb” would soon cause global misery. (The Population Bomb was actually the title of a 1968 book whose authors believed that the Earth was near the upper limit of its carrying capacity.)

If the planet is nowhere near maximum population, then why is there hunger and famine? Why are there regions without sufficient water? Why is there poverty?

Those conditions are the result of bad decisions by people: a few honest mistakes, but mostly a lot of greed and corruption.

If the Earth’s population were 1,000,000 - which is less than 1% of what it is now - there would still be someone without enough proper food, without clean water, and living in poverty.

Even with only a tiny fraction of its current population, the planet would still be home to malnutrition, unclean drinking water, and poverty.

Surprisingly, as the population has grown, the percentage of people living in poverty has decreased. A larger percentage of the Earth’s population lived in poverty 4,000 years than now.

A steadily growing population (as opposed to a rapidly growing or erratically growing one) is the best environment for economic growth.

Interestingly, a “zero growth” population, or a declining one, tends to be worse for the environment than other populations. A smaller supply of young people - young workers - nudges industry to choose options which are not friendly to the environment, even when such technology is available, because such measures are labor-intensive.

Human Sacrifice in Norse Mythology

Most, and probably all, civilizations in their earliest phases have practiced proto-religions which routinely included human sacrifice. From the Greeks and Romans to the Sumerians and Egyptians, myth and magic constituted these pre-religious varieties of polytheism.

Attempts to manipulate nature are termed ‘magic,’ and the mythologies of the Norse are no exception. One of the first authors to note this was Tacitus, the ethnographer whose chief work about northern Europe is titled Germania. Two scholars, E.O.G. Turville-Petre and Edgar Charles Polomé, write that:

In his Germania, Tacitus described the worship of a goddess, Nerthus, on an island, probably in the Baltic Sea. Whatever symbol represented her was kept hidden in a grove and taken around once a year in a covered chariot. During her pageant, there was rejoicing and peace, and all weapons were laid aside. Afterward, she was bathed in a lake and returned to her grove, but those who participated in her lustration were drowned in the lake as a sacrifice to thank her for her blessings.

By killing human beings as offerings to the Norse deities, the Norse hoped to gain some good fortune: a military victory, good weather, human fertility, or a bountiful harvest.

The Norse were not monolithic. Among them were many different tribes, each of which had its own variant of the foundational mythology. The Semnones occupied regions in southern Scandinavia and in what is now Germany.

Sacrifice often was conducted in the open or in groves and forests. The human sacrifice to the tribal god of the Semnones, described by Tacitus, took place in a sacred grove; other examples of sacred groves include the one in which Nerthus usually resides. Tacitus does, however, mention temples in Germany, though they were probably few. Old English laws mention fenced places around a stone, tree, or other object of worship. In Scandinavia, men brought sacrifice to groves and waterfalls.

Human sacrifice would continue to be common among not only among the Norse, but also among other European tribes, until roughly the era of Charlemagne. Made emperor in 800 A.D., he fostered education and culture, expanding his Frankish influence eastward and northward.

The Danish National Museum concludes that “archaeological finds from recent years show that human sacrifice was a reality in Viking Age Denmark.”